1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to an apparatus for resin impregnation and, more specifically, to an apparatus for controlling resin impregnation of a fiber.
2. Description of Related Art
Traditionally, fibers are impregnated by passing them manually through a resin bath, using an applicator roller, or injection die. These methods require a high burden of manual handling, and typically do not result in non-uniform impregnation, and may result in the entrapment of air within the resin. This leads to a weakening of the part. Such methods and other can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,766,357, 6,387,179, and 6,179,945.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,413,623 describes many of the methods for resin impregnation of the prior art. U.S. Pat. No. 7,413,623 is incorporated herein by reference. U.S. Pat. No. 7,413,623 improves upon the prior art by employing the use of two roll impregnators, wherein the fiber passes through a resin pool directly above the two rollers. The resin pool resides sits above the two impregnation rollers and is held in from the sides by a set of dams. When the fiber passes through the two rollers, full impregnation is fostered, excess resin removed, and the impregnated fiber degassed. At least one of the two impregnator rollers can be adjusted to be closer or further from the other impregnator roller, allowing for control of the tension applied on the fiber. Outside of the two impregnation rollers is a set of alignment/tensioning bars.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/208,322, published on Mar. 12, 2009, describes a system and method for using at least one roller to impregnate fibers with a liquid resin within a pressurized zone. The use of two rollers for impregnation with a pressurized zone at the output side of the rollers is also described.
None of the existing techniques for impregnation using impregnation rollers describe a convenient means for automatically adding resin to the resin pool. In addition, the existing techniques do not employ the use of temperature control for the resin pool or rollers, and the use of a latent catalyst system, which is automatically activated after the impregnation.